Analysis

The political class will rally around President Hollande of course, saying this is a grotesque invasion of his private life and has nothing to do with his role as president.

But many ordinary people are bound to take a different view. This is an insight into the life of their president and if, as the magazine is claiming, he is unhappy in his life, quite morose, living separately from his official partner and sneaking out on these rendezvous on a regular basis, then many people will say they do deserve to know that.

This is a moment in his presidency when he's got to re-launch himself. He needs to refashion an image of himself as a more decisive decision-maker who's prepared to take risks.

This period, January, is traditionally the time when presidents do that. President Hollande has a round of press conferences next week that were to be the moment, his entourage was saying, when he would re-forge a more dynamic image.

"Julie Gayet's lawyer contacted us to request we remove from the website all mention of this relationship," Laurence Pieau, editor of Closer, told Agence France-Presse news agency, adding that the removal would probably take place by Friday evening.

No action was announced about the print version however.

Ms Pieau said there had been no contact with the presidential palace.

'Surprising images'

Ms Gayet has appeared in more than 50 films, and once appeared in one of Mr Hollande's election campaign television adverts.

Rumours of their alleged relationship have been circulating on the internet for many months.

Last March, she filed a complaint with prosecutors in Paris against various bloggers and websites that were reporting on the rumours.

Her lawyer at the time said there was no basis to the claims. She has not yet commented on the latest developments.

Mr Hollande's official partner is Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist for whom he left fellow Socialist politician Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children.

Mr Hollande told AFP that he "like every other citizen has a right" to privacy.

In a statement issued personally rather than by his office, he said he was "looking into possible action, including legal action" against Closer.

The president's official partner is the journalist Valerie Trierweiler who lives with him at the Elysee palace

But he does not deny the allegation of an affair, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris points out.

The British royal family took legal action against the magazine in September 2012 after it published photos of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless on a private holiday in France.

Ms Pieau - along with two photographers and the magazine's publishing director Ernesto Mauri - has since been charged with breaching privacy laws.

French political commentator Anne Elisabeth Moutet told the BBC the magazine was unlikely to have gone with the story about Mr Hollande's alleged affair "without being quite sure that they had something on it".

"And what's very interesting is that this was immediately picked up by one of the very respectable news magazines, Le Point," she said.

It was unlikely legal action could now suppress the story, Ms Moutet added.

President Hollande, who took office in May 2012, has seen public support slipping recently. One poll in November gave him just 15% support, the lowest for any president in the past 50 years.

French people have historically been tolerant of their leaders' infidelities - with revelations making little impact on poll ratings.

Former President Jacques Chirac was a known ladies' man, once confessing: "There have been women I have loved a lot, as discreetly as possible."

His predecessor Francois Mitterand kept secret a mistress and daughter for much of his presidency, only acknowledging them shortly before his death in 1996.

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